Franken: Under FCC's 'neutrality' rules, 'the Internet as we know it would cease'

reply to post by Solasis


Off topic: Healthcare reform, and anything of the like is unconstitutional. Nothing further to discuss, " flawed or not". It is yet another social program designed to be a burden on the citizenry of this country..PERIOD!

There is no Constitutional Right to have insurance. It's a privilege, not a right. And in order to obtain such privilege, one must work for it, not be given to them...and then later fined if it isn't affordable.

I agree with aching_knuckles that there seem to be a lot of misconceptions, and, unfortunately, and apparently, even a lack of reading comprehension.

(1) The principle of net neutrality is that all providers should treat all content, sites, and platforms equally; that providers are not allowed to prioritize or censor any lawful content.

(2) Net neutrality was not ‘created,’ or imagined, by any administration. It’s a concept that even predates the internet.

(3) Al Franken is not against net neutrality, on the contrary.

(4) What the FCC is proposing is not net neutrality — in fact, the proposed policy changes would relax regulations and restrictions even more, favoring those not adhering to the principle of net neutrality.

(5) Franken is making this point.

As I’ve stated on another thread related to this issue, here is a clear example of where FUD is effective and even manages to get people to vote and protest against their own interests.

I understand why most members are wary of government interfering or defining the policies for regulating the internet, but that’s not exactly what would be happening here.

If the FCC proposed and implemented real net neutrality policies and regulations — what Franken is arguing for — it would benefit consumers, as it would prevent providers from prioritizing, or even censoring, lawful content. Why do you think the big providers, like Comcast and AT&T, are against net neutrality?

If net neutrality principles and regulations are not endorsed and implemented, the providers could, for example, deny access to AboveTopSecret, or make the access to the website so slow that it’s practically unusable, unless AboveTopSecret paid Comcast for Comcast users to access the website, or access it as quickly as they accessed foxnews.com or msnbc.com.

reply to post by Whereweheaded


Actually, just because it isn't protected directly by the constitution, that doesn't mean it goes against the constitution. "Healthcare reform" as an entire topic is most definitely NOT unconstitutional.

The problem is that certain provisions of this particular push may turn out to be unconstituitonal. But, again, those provisions are often not what they are portrayed as by opponents, and even when they are, they are not the ideal provisions that they originally were. The particular element in question here is the "everyone has to buy health insurance" bit. That, as stated, is almost certainly unconstitutional. But the ideal form which Obama and other liberals were pushing in the campaign only requires everyone to have health insurance, with this provision paid for by those who could afford it, via taxes, employer regulations, or whatever.

See, there's plenty more to discuss. You just don't want to.

reply to post by Solasis

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A federal judge declared the foundation of President Barack Obama's health care law unconstitutional Monday, ruling that the government cannot require Americans to purchase insurance. The case is expected to end up at the Supreme Court.

Of course, there is one additional way for states to win a fight about the constitutionality of health-care legislation: Make it unconstitutional. Article V of the Constitution gives state legislatures the power to require Congress to convene a convention to propose an amendment to the Constitution. If two-thirds of state legislatures demand an amendment barring the federal regulation of health insurance or an individual mandate, Congress would be constitutionally bound to hold a convention. Something like this happened in 1933 when Congress proposed and three-quarters of the states ratified the 21st Amendment, removing from the Constitution the federal power to prohibit the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol. But the very threat of an amendment convention would probably induce Congress to repeal the bill.

The proposed Health Security Act is not within the authority of the Congress under the Commerce Clause, and it does violate Tenth Amendment and other principles of federalism.

This discussion is off topic, but if the moderators allow me a brief comment re: the Affordable Care Act (ACA) —

reply to post by Whereweheaded
Whereweheaded, your citation of one lower court decision against the individual mandate in the ACA doesn’t prove it’s unconstitutional. IIRC there were two previous lower court judges who decided in favor of the mandate. These don’t prove its constitutionality, vel non, only an inclination and opinion of the particular judges.

Regarding the opinion of the federal judge in Virginia, judge Hudson, some legal experts have pointed out that judge Hudson’s ruling is based on tying the Necessary and Proper clause with the Commerce Clause, saying that if something can’t be done under the Commerce Clause it can’t be done under the Necessary and Proper clause. He doesn’t cite the authority for this conclusion.

Further, in light of Supreme Court caselaw, namely Wickard v. Fillburn, and more recently United States v. Comstock, it will be hard for the Justices — if the challenges reach the Supreme Court, and I believe they will — to rule that the mandate falls outside Congress’ authority. And these cases weren’t even close decisions — 8-0 and 7-2 respectively.

Whether it’s good law or not I don’t know, but I think the chances of the Justices striking it down aren’t very high.

reply to post by aptness


Though I respect your case, in accordance with Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, Powers of Congress, there is no Constitutional right to have insurance. It has been identified as a malicious attempt to use the Commerce Clause as its " way out ", to implement the reform.

." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states.

With that said, the question of Constitutionality of a mandated insurance requirement is deemed null and void.

Good job derailing this thread into partisan retardation. No one cares about the semantics of the atrocity of health care bill, we're talking about atrocity that is the US government and how they're targeting the last baston of freedom left to the common man.

The US federal government has no need and/or right to interfere in any way in the transmission of citizens' ideas.

The "net neutrality" act is a "foot in the door" attempt by the obama administration to control, contain and censor the way people communicate on the internet.

Tell me how I'm wrong...

I agree that it appears more government control and government measures have been implemented during the past two years of the Obama administration than previously...

However, I also agree that the nefarious Patriot Act is what set the stage most of this-
and this happened during Bush's watch.

I think that Obama is plain out of his league here, with no idea really of what the average American thinks & feels... and it doesn't appear that he gives a tin crap about it either.

I would like to quote a comment posted on slashdot, that concisely and plainly explains what this is all about.

There are people who want to censor the internet. Some of them are in government, some of them are in industry. There are also people who want to keep the internet free. Some of them are in government, some of them are in industry. Those of us who want the internet to remain a medium for free speech should oppose the actions of the first group, wherever they appear, and support the actions of the second group, wherever they appear. The choice is not "government control vs. industry control" but "censorhip vs. freedom," and net neutrality serves the "freedom" side.

If you oppose net neutrality, you are on the side of the censors. If you support net neutrality, you are on the side of freedom.

That's it. That's all there is.

Originally posted by quackers

Originally posted by thegoodearth

So more gouging likely to pass on Tuesday...
If this passes, everyone should dump their ISP and go with WiFi.

Wifi is a good idea in principal but far from a solution given the range and the fact that you'd have little more than a local area network without access to the wider internet. In otherwords an intranet in which the only content is provided by those within it.

Sad fact is that the vast majority are unwilling to give up their facebook/msn/vod/skype ect ect ect, and as such the major ISPs will continue on.

Wireless internet devices that use wifi can act as a repeater. They are everywhere in urban environments. You could easily link up metropolitan areas in an instant with the correct protocol. These programming geniuses need to come up with a solution asap. Make it swarm-like...kinda like bittorrent. Open, error-checking redundancy, & efficient.

Screw the web. We're in the 21st century. Let's do an open community cloud project.

reply to post by Whereweheaded


Again, just because it is not defended by the constitution, that does not mean that it is unconstitutional. Your other point is a valid one, but by your first argument, owning a table would be unconstitutional.

reply to post by aching_knuckles


I wish they would ban you, for crying out loud - you are quite clearly a chronic malcontent or a troll.

No one else could possibly believe the verbal vomit you spout.

So Bush reinforced the basics of the bill of rights via conservative "hardening" of the Supreme Court, while obama undermined it. obama made the imperial federal government even more present in the lives of the American people via HIS expansion of the DHS and TSA and the BATF and the IRS and the EPA, enlarging and empowering even more the government agencies that spends billions spying on us? Ever heard of obama's favorite fascist funcitonary cass sunstein and his stated willingness to infiltrate internet websites in a fashion consistent with the COINTELPRO operations of the johnson administration? But I'm sure you will find some BS lie to say about that too.

So stop with your patently provable lies and attempts to rewrite historical truths. I'm not an Republican-bot by far, but every thread I see you on, you are posting egregious lies and obvious mistruths and representing them as fact, forcing people to listen to you whine and undermine the subject...just like every other single thread I have seen you on.

Also, you might seem marginally more believable if you could clean up your punctuation and syntax.

Originally posted by Solasis
reply to post by Whereweheaded

 

Again, just because it is not defended by the constitution, that does not mean that it is unconstitutional. Your other point is a valid one, but by your first argument, owning a table would be unconstitutional.

I actually believe that it would be interesting to make all wooden furniture unconstitutional.

Originally posted by Solasis
reply to post by Whereweheaded

 

Again, just because it is not defended by the constitution, that does not mean that it is unconstitutional. Your other point is a valid one, but by your first argument, owning a table would be unconstitutional.

Healthcare isnt specifically authorized in Article 1 Section 8.

Having health insurance funded by tax dollars is unconstitutional.

Buying your own table isnt. Congress buying tables for everyone, or mandating everyone must own one would be unconstitutional.

All this is is another way for the government to get their foot in the door to further regulate something that doesn't require it. It has been working quite fine for some time now no need for intervention.

Originally posted by CanadianDream420
DUH..

THAT'S why we have the new v6IP network. It's already been implemented just not "activated"...

They already had a solution for this problem many years ago.. Just like TSA scanners. They were built years ago, and the Christmas Bomber was whom activated this situation :S

Can you explain what this is all about? I haven't a clue what any of this means. Thanks.

I find it interesting that our civli rights are leaving us everyday and everybody is blaming the other guy.

I think we were supposed to be in charge but we elected idiots to congress.

I think I will give up the internet and start reading cash purchased books again.

reply to post by thegoodearth


Liberals - control freaks all - should stop their nasty selves and leave the Internet alone. I am sick of this centralized control nonsense. What is wrong with these people?

i made a thread about this about a hour ago...www.abovetopsecret.com...
i think that the point of control and the bottleneck will be in our wallets as isp's begin upping the ante for internet access, now that we are so reliant on the web it has become as common as car insurance or health insurance, now they just need to raise the rates on us.

The statement that under Net Neutrality "everyone has an equal right to use" is not accurate. Internet Service Providers sell packages that limit the bandwidth that can be consumed (Mbps). Faster connections cost more and allow more data throughput. Net Neutrality establishes that, as long as you do not exceed the bandwidth you paid for, all content providers should be allowed.The alternative means service providers sell you the bandwidth and then limit what you can access through it.

'With perfect timing, two cellular-service companies are proposing a plan for wireless carriers to monitor usage and charge extra by the kind of site or service visited. The proposal by wireless suppliers Allot Communications and Openet comes right before the Federal Communications Commission meets to vote on the latest plan for Net neutrality.'

www.toptechnews.com...